Wireless Adaptor for HTC VIVE (/WA)

Experience something you never have in VR before! Experience total freedom. Freedom to walk and meander through a beautiful landscape, freedom to spin and turn and jump!

TPCAST Wireless Adaptor for VIVE is an accessory developed specifically for HTC VIVE. It enables HTC Vive owner and users to easily upgrade their HTC Vive to a wireless VR HMD. With highly optimized antenna array and large bandwith, it ensures the display quality is the same as that with a cable.

Features

• Easy to Install: The TPCAST adaptor replaces the HTC Vive cables following a straightforward and easy installation.
• High Resolution: The transmission delivers up to 2k display resolution and provides an extraordinary virtual reality experience.
• Immersive In-Game Experience: Getting rid of the HTC VIVE cables enables 360 degree of free movement.
• Long Battery Life: Battery pack provides up to 5 hours of operation.
• Extraordinary Comfort: The TPCAST wireless Receiver, attached to the HTC Vive is very light and small.
• No Visual Distortion: The adaptor preserves the high video frame rate of 90Hz (90 frames per second).
• Near Zero Latency: The adapter adds less than 2ms latency assuring a seamless VR experience.
• Two-Way Interaction: Signals are transmitted back and forth between the PC Transmitter and Receiver.
• Broad Signal Coverage: Signals can reach up to 5 meters with a 360 degree angle.

Customer review

Average customer rating

Does what it says on the tin

Very impressed with this. I have an older motherboard that didn't allow me to use the Vive Wireless solution, as its PCIe version was too old, so this was the only currently alternative solution.

Having fitted the hardware which took a bit of work, quite fiddly tbh, and installed the software it was up and running straight away and has worked ever since with no issues at all. I did fit an extra LAN port to my PC so I had a dedicated port for the TPCast.

Picture quality is excellent, no drop out issues at all within my play area ( 2.5m x 2.5m) and no audio issues. It just works and gives me the freedom I needed. Would be hard to go back to a tethered setup now!
It does get quite hot but not enough to be an issue.

I do have the well reported green line on the right hand side of the display which is visible in my peripheral vision but isn't normally noticeable when gaming. I have their available patch for the mic operation but have not installed that yet, as I've not needed the mic. Not sure if that fixes the green line too but if not and it proves to be bothersome to anyone I believe physically masking the edge of the display with tape is an effective cures as the line lies outside of the main display area anyway. To be honest it's the reflected green light that's more the issue as the line is so bright, despite not being directly visible.

All in all a great bit of kit. Fully recommended !

Ian Leslie
2019-02-09

Great hardware, software and firmware need a lot of work

Overclockers delivery was fantastic as always!

So what is this product like? Lets break this down into the good, the bad, the ugly, and the saviour!

The Good:

No need to have a set of cables linking your HMD to your PC - Ok let me be clear if all your doing is playing racing/flying sims (where you are sitting down all the time) then you do not need this - but if you want to take advantage of a room scale VR experience or play a game that takes advantage of height (like Skyrim VR which sneaks when you crouch) then you will really want this.

The battery for the HMD actually lasts longer then the batteries in the HTV wands! I was very surprised by this, but at the end of the day you don't need the wands for every VR experience so it's not a problem.

The battery charges via USB, just like the wands and your phone. Of course, having such capacity it can take a while to charge - but I get about 8 hours of use from a charge and I am using the Viva Delux Audio Strap which uses a little more power for the headphones than the in ear ones.

The Bad:

The installation instructions are utter junk - while all the cables are labeled (you can't get it wrong - A into A, B into B etc) the instructions provide very poor direction on how to correctly route the cables to get a good even fit. There really is no excuse for this.

Requires a direct network connection to it's own router, which is not made clear EVER. In the end I purchased a seperate network card as I was not able to get the software to find the router if it was connected via my main router - hard coded network segments made it impossible. This is VERY dissapointing.

Power cable for the transmitter is far too short, which might make positioning of the transmitter tricky. I have had to resort to a dedicated extension lead to get it in a good position - not a major issue but do be aware of this.

Startup time is, well there is no other word for it, terrible. Which leads to...

The Ugly:

Camera doesn't work with the standard firmware.

Microphone doesn't work with the standard firmware.

Using the TPCast was like playing with dice, some times it would work and work perfectly, others it just wouldn't do anything - just a black display on the HMD. Often this required a reboot of the PC, praying to the mighty Cthulhu, or resorting to shouting, stamping of feet, giving up and trying another day. Sounds bad doesn't it? Well it was, and with the camera/microhpone issues I was ready to give up. But I took a chance, and I was glad that I did! Which leads to...

The Saviour:

Ok, there is no religion here - just great programmers. After hours spent trying to solve problems and getting ready to give up I found OpenTPCast, a FOSS firmware (that requires purchase of a license for VirtualHere server software - at the time $25 US - about £19) that fixes damn near everything! Now, I want to make clear I have no involvement with the OpenTPCast guys and I can't offcially recommend using it - after all warranty and all that. But at the end of the day the FREE (besides the VirtualHere license) fixed everything. It took me about 10 minutes to install/configure and you can roll back to stock firmware if you want/need to (warranty etc). It worked first time and every time. Now I am not happy that I had to go this route, but it was worth it.

In summary this is a great bit of kit, but it needs more work on the software side of things. TPCast need to get their act together in this regard - this is not a cheap bit of kit and it should work perfectly right out of the box. That being said, the freedom to run/jump/duck/crouch in VR is amazing - even games like Elite or Asseto Corsa are a bit better as the trailing cable is no longer in the way. But did I need to spend the extra money because TPCast couldn't make this work right on their own? Should I have complained to their support and got them to fix it? Probably, but the OpenTPCast solution just works and was an instant fix.

Steve Jackson
2018-07-18

Not 20Amp, 20Ah battery pack at 5 hours is 4A ...

Tech geek
2018-04-28

Faraday Cage

Brilliant! Now I can rest assured I'll never get a brain tumour with this 20 AMP wireless transmitter resting firmly against my skull!

Keith Harding
2017-11-08

@Faraday Cage: Please do not confuse receiver and transmitter. On your head the receiver is placed which receives the video signals so no 60 GHz radiation generated from there. Both transmitter and receiver are German TUV certified regarding radiation. Most of the battery power is needed for powering the Vive HMD, not for the TPCAST adapter.